The listener’s perspective: audience comments attached to a questionnaire on the perception of quality in consecutive interpreting assignments performed by trainees

Abstract

This study is part of a project investigating user-perceived quality of consecutive interpreting assignments carried out as part of an on-the-job training scheme offered to our students. From a theoretical-methodological point of view we have adopted the ethnographic perspective (Angelelli 2004; Valero-Garcés & Martin 2008) and administered users and other participants a questionnaire replicated from Collados Aís’s research (1998). Thus far, we have collected responses from 403 informants in 14 different events. In this paper we focus on the “Additional Comments and Suggestions” section which the informants can fill in at the end of the questionnaire. We examine the types of commentaries added, their frequency and consistency with the rest of responses. We also explore whether the informants who provide negative assessments in the questionnaire add details in this section.